only in new york.......

now, don't get me wrong....i love new york.....as i've told you before, i'm one of the extremely few truckdrivers who still get excited everytime i cross the george washington.....or staten island.......but i gotta tell ya, there is a reason that new yorkers have the reputation they have.......case in point......a couple of weeks ago we headed over into brooklyn by way of the verrazano bridge to pickup a load at the old navy docks.....after getting off of i-287 and making our way almost to the docks on typical, overcrowded, narrow, paralell-parking-on-both-sides-of-the-street surface streets, we were one left turn away from our destination when we can to a sudden stop.......a roadway driver in a 10-wheel straight truck.....what???,about half the length of our truck???? rammed in to side of a small compact car driven by a young man who was attempting to pull out of a parallel parking spot on the right....thus tying up traffic on the street while both parties exchanged blame and other choice words and then got on their respective cell phones to contact a. police, and b. insurance agents and c. at least one good buddy each who they surprised with the words "dude, you're not gonna believe what just happened"........we sat at a stop right behind the roadway truck because we needed to make a left hand turn just past that building on the left in the top picture.......cars from behind us started coming around us, which literally made the oncoming traffic have to come to stop, except for a few adventuresome souls who sucked in their breath till they'd fit and created a lane where there was none........all of this was accompanied by the usual honking and hand gestures that make new york new york......and then the epitome of new york thinking kicked in in the form of the roadway driver coming back and telling brad to go around him.......brad told him that he had to make the left turn and that there wasn't room to get snaked around him and clear the intersection......and his reply???? "whatdayamean( yes, that's all spoken as one word!) ya can't make the turn??? wheredidya (also condensed to one word) learn how to drive????"

ummmmmm.....dude, excuse me, but we're not the one's sittin in the street with a four-wheeler attached to our bumper.........

another mouth to feed........

one of the perks of being a team of company drivers is that we get a brand new truck every year......we put around 250,000 to 300,000 miles on a truck and then trade it in and start all over.....for about 3 years now, we've been burning ultra-low sulfur fuel in the trucks ....a design effort to reduce emissions and comply with epa standards, especially california epa standards.....at first it was a hassle as not all truckstops were carrying the ultra-low sulphur fuel and we were constantly having to track down a place that had it, but then as there became more and more demand for it (all trucks with engines 2007 and newer require it), more and more places carried it........



about the same time we started using the ultra-low sulphur fuel, we also got a handy little feature on our engines called "regeneration"........this meant that while going down the road, our truck would occasionally go thru the "regen" process where internal temperatures could reach as much as 1500 degrees and would burn off any carbon buildup......occasionally you would also have to "regen" manually if you had been idling for long periods of time....when you have to manually "regen" you have to make sure you're not sitting on grass and/or near any paper or combustible materials........i've gotta tell ya, it took quite awhile to get over feelin anxious every time we were in "regen" mode......with all the little silly things we've had mechanics miss on our trucks over the years, it's a little hard to trust that truck builders always do everything right to keep you safe from those kind of temperatures under your butt........



last month we got our 2011 freightliner cascadia.....it has a detroit motor in it.......detroit, in their infinite wisdom, designed an engine that not only has all the features i've already mentioned, but it also has this handy little receptacle that you have to keep filled, in addition to the fuel tanks........ this extra tank holds a product called d.e.f......which stands for diesel exhaust fluid....an additive that makes the "regen" process burn cleaner and supposedly more effectively.....

you have the above pictured gauge(the row of green lights) on your dash to let you know when you need to add def.....and you're warned to keep a close eye on this gauge as running out of def will shut your motor down............we've been told that eventually most truck stops will also have a pump on the fuel islands for def, but so far, in three trips from coast to coast, we've only found one truckstop in washington state with it and they only had one pump on one fuel island for it.......the truckstops who do carry def stock it in the packaging you see below......2 and a half gallon plastic jugs with foot long nozzles that come packaged in cardboard cartons.........it causes me some concern that the same people who came up with this wonderful idea, are the same people who couldn't figure that the packaging should include a vent in the plastic jug so that the fluid would actually go into the tank with out you having to pull out your trusty pocket knife and punch a hole in the jug.............it also causes me concern that even tho i'm not picking up the tab on the def, it's $14 for one of these jugs and we have yet to determine how many jugs it actually takes to fill the tank up......ours was on half full and we put in 6 jugs and think we could have easily added two more.......let's see....that's $84 and two days later we had to fill it again.......i'm all for saving the planet, i just want to be able to afford to live on it while i'm keeping it green........

so now we leave this nice mess on the fuel islands.........

and this mess down the side of our truck, because the way the tank opening is situated and the way the jug nozzle is made, it's impossible to keep it from dripping......

not to mention that on the stops where you have to add the def, it adds at least another 15 minutes to an already tight schedule.........but hey!.....who gives a rat's derriere if we're overloading the landfills with plastic and cardboard as long as we're keeping the air cleaner in california?????

my little black bag

i'm not much for carrying a purse on the truck......for one thing, life in the truck is hard on them....they get kicked around on the floor, rub up against stuff and ruin the leather as we roll down the road....about the only time i feel the need for one is if we are taking time off somewhere other than home and i know i'll be going out shopping or to dinner....or when we stop at walmart.........back in my solo-driver days i had the whole dash to hold all my "essentials" while i was driving......but in the years since i became a team driver, it seems like either the dash is getting smaller and smaller, they're putting more and more space-sucking gadgets on the dash or else brad is just getting more and more stuff of his own, because it doesn't seem like i can find a place for my stuff up there anymore!.....but a couple of months ago while in walmart i was cruising the craft supply isle and found this little jewel......it's got sturdy sides and has kept it's shape.....it has loads of various sized individual pockets that make almost custom-crafted homes for all my goodies and it wipes clean with a damp cloth!!.....
outside pockets hold my eye-glass cleaner and cloth, hand sanitizer and a small bottle of a great little cucumber pick-me-up-spray, pens, post-its, and a comb........ an interior row of pockets are sized just right for my sunglasses, tissues, ipod, phone and headset.....and the huge inside pocket holds whatever audio-book i'm listening to at the time and keeps my wallet in handy reach!

i'm not embarrassed to tell ya that i'm just a little bit in-love with this handy little bag!....i set it on the floor beside my seat when i'm driving and everything i might need while driving is within handy reach......i've not yet given up my cupholder space for my coffee, water, tea or whatever tho...although the designers seem to keep making these smaller and shallower all the time, so it may not be long before i have to add a bottle holder to this little number!....and when we switch out and brad drives, all i have to do is pick it up and set it back on the bunk or a shelf and it's out of his way.....and he thinks that's pretty sweet!

council bluffs, iowa

i take alot of pleasure from simple things in life......one of them is watching all the new decorative bridge railings and intersection landscaping that so many cities across the country are installing as they upgrade and expand the infrastructure.....pennsicola, florida has the blue angels navy show squadron on their overpass abuttments.....seattle has fish and waves and mountains......las vegas has fighter jets from nellis airforce base.......albuquerque has huge mosaic pots and a giant cactus that changes colors at night......salt lake city and ogden have beautiful tin sculptures of ranchers, cattle, horses, and miners and skiers.............recently, while coming thru council bluffs, iowa for the first time in awhile we were greeted by this............we looked.......we looked again......we picked our jaws up off the truck floor and looked again.......we looked at each other and then at it again.......whaaaaattttttt??????????........

i'm pretty certain they paid alot of money for this "art".....upon a little closer inspection it looks like parts of tractors and farming implements welded together in some grotesque and eerie fashion.......perhaps inspired by a transformer movie or even edward scissorhands....... i guess i'm just missing something here.......i've seen the remains of a three-car pileup loaded on a rollback that made more sense than these do.......

on another recent trip thru council bluffs at night, we did at least find something good to say about the sculptures........"at least they're not lit up after dark!"