OTR Truckin'

I began what was to be a lifetime affair with trucks when I was 19 years old. Oh, I went off and did this and did that for a while but, it seemed that I was destined to work in, on, or around trucks for the largest part of my life. It has been rewarding, damming and frustrating.

I worked as a stable boy at a place called Bar S Stables at Griffith Park in Burbank, Ca. I’m guessing the only reason I went to work there is, I met a girl and she hung out there. Occasionally an over the road trucker would bring horses from Oklahoma for sale or to renew the rentals that were the stables main business. After becoming fast friends with the driver, a Missourian named Delbert Gist, (RIP Deb!!!) my interest was piqued and my career began.

It was very hard to break into the industry in the late 60s, the age required to go over the road was and is 21 years old. I took my first job as a trucker when I was 19 with a company in San Dimas, Ca called Fox Hollow Horse Transportation hauling Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses up and down the coast of California, going to such places as Del Mar, Santa Anita, Bay Meadows, Golden Gate Fields and many more. After turning 21 I eventually began transporting horses throughout the entire North American Continent. I believe I have been to every racetrack of note in this country for sure, several in Canada and even two in Mexico. You have not lived until you have driven an eighteen wheeler through Juarez on a Saturday afternoon.

The lure of the road became too much and I wanted more freedom than I had with this company so I decided to find a company willing to hire a younker. It was hard I’ll tell ya, You have to keep in mind that when I started driving, the Interstate system was only about 50% complete, mostly around metro areas. Owners back then were sorta scared to let green drivers just take off with a truck & load.



I finally found a 2nd seat position with a company called Big Sky Trucking of Montana. Back during the Viet Nam conflict there were transport companies that were based in agriculture, a non regulated commodity. They were able to haul 70% regulated if they hauled 30% of farm commodities. A loose way of saying we were “hot ‘n heavy” haulers. I learned how to get around the US the way most would never realize. The many times, in fact almost always we would go from coast to coast without touching a state weigh station. It was more physically demanding back then because of the long hours and the routes we had to take. Hauling mostly for the Navy and Army I occasionally hauled the odd Sidewinder or loads of 500 pounders for the Air Force. If people only knew what they were sharing the American highways with back then.

When the war died down I began driving for various produce haulers. With my experience I was a great catch as a driver because of my ability to move illegal loads around. Not jail time illegal, just big dollar citation type illegal. Had my own truck for a while hauling produce for Frenchy’s Markets in Montreal, Ca. With my own truck came lots of payments so I cut wherever I could and hauled as heavy as I could. I ran with my pickup license plate for almost two years. I got caught in Illinois, it cost me $1200 for a year there. That was okay tough, it just meant I was legal. Had they taken me to the scales it would have cost me another $800 for overweight. You didn’t have to be smart to be a state cop in those days.


Since my scanner is broke I used some pics off the net. Similar but not the same as I drove.

continued....

Nukes

I have read with interest the letters of local and not so local persons condemning the use of nuclear power plants. We seem to have many "not in my backyard" wierdos here. They overlook the fact that we have one of the largest storage and shipping facility for nukes within 30 mi of here.

The outrageous use of water, can’t they reuse water? The expense, we have and do pay to subsidize the building of dams, big fans, & coal-fired plants now. Why not channel the subsidies into clean burning, reliable nuke power? The latest rant was someone railing against nuclear waste. Funny thing about that, we have several up & running plants in the UsofA and I have not heard of any problems. Europe runs on nuke power, again I have heard of no problems. Believe it, were there any problems the enviro-whackos would be parading in front of every plant in the world.

In 1986 the Chernobyl Power Plant #4 reactor exploded showing the world what could happen with no oversight, no restrictions, shabby building standards and socialist controls. Hmm, could this have been one of the first terror strikes? The world has since tightened standards and security and no incidents have been reported. All these plants are aging though, if they are not replaced, in 10 or 20 years we will undoubtedly be facing a new crisis.

The Chosen One, has said He will put the coal business out of business. Of course that means we will no longer have a plant serving our area and will have to rely on the big fans. We will have to have one in every spot there is a spot to be able to serve the area and of course with an Obama presidency the wind will blow gently forever more.

In an Obama presidency like the Clinton presidency the global warming issue will not be an issue, unless it’s to further His agenda. Those of us that read knew all along that it’s a bunch of hooey. If it wasn’t those who espouse it would alter their lifestyles instead of telling us that we have to alter ours.

As far as the waste issue, we will develope a plan, as I stated earlier they must have a pretty good plan now. We will keep on safely developing ways. As long as we don't just dump it in a landfill somewhere I'm thinkin' it is pretty much under control. Somebody just has to take a stand, slap the whackos down...hard, and say "get out of our way, let us do our jobs".

Bailouts

As we have now found out, the Trillion in giveaways did nothing for the people it was supposed to help. The criminals that we reinstall yearly in Washington just gave it to their already incredibly rich buddies. The bankers that got money just went out and bought more banks. There has been nothing done for the "poor" people it was supposed to help. How shocking!

Today we are going to bailout the United Auto Workers Union and by proxy the "Big Three" auto makers. Mostly it's a bailout so the union is not told to go find a real job. The end to protectionism? What a novel idea. They called them gangsters in the early days. Now they call them union leaders and politicians. They are expecting to be paid back for the ton of money they gave The Messiah for the election though. This will be a down payment. Contrary to what the whiners are saying, it is a bailout, it's not a loan. I can't think of anything more exciting than having to give money to a company for the privilege of buying it's product.

Watching the news, again I see that 41 states have their hand out for a bailout. They've been giving taxpayers money away as fast as they can rake it in and are so far in the red they don't know if they can keep their heads above water. Again the sky is falling, children are going to starve, and the fat welfare momma won't get her Big Screen TV. Of course, cutting giveaways will not work. They won't even stop giveaways to illegals, to their shame....and to ours for keeping them in control year after year.

I saw in the newspaper that one of the larger print media has gone bankrupt. Several of the existing ones, after years of mismanagement are also on their knees begging for the bailout cash. Nothing surprises me any more. The Exalted One will probably give them some of our money too. After all they lied for him and refused to print facts or even investigate his past.

Where will it end? That's a big question.

History?

For those that don't know about history ... Here is a condensed version:

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.
The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals, and
2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, airline pilots and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history:




Mark, you forgot one thing, they way the libs will just stand slack-jawed with an empty look and an empty mind when someone such as the Messiah pres-elect Hussien or Queen of the House SanFran Nan speaks. They do not have a thought of their own.

Where's Obama

It looks like The One has succeeded in getting elected, but does he know what to do with it? He is the first president-elect to hide out and not bask in the warm glow his followers have created. Usually they are out front trying to steal the thunder from the sitting president from the day after the election until they take the oath. Luckily for the Osamabama, the oath is not retroactive.

I've been wondering how the lemmings feel that voted him in? If I were in that unenviable position I would feel as if I had been kicked in the crotch. He hasn't even taken office yet and the lies and excuses are already starting. To say nothing about his "change". Everybody that he is putting on his team has been complicite in the corruption of the financial world. His sheeple are probably still in awe, unable to see past the check they'll get, free health care, free gas, free groceries, being able to kiss the ground after he passes, or whatever reason they voted for him. I know it wasn't because he was qualified.

I saw on the news last night that there was a fellow that is doing a documentary on the election. It shows how utterly stupid Obama voters are. It was kind of like exit polling, you could see the lines in the background on voting day. Easy things like who is the majority? Who is Nancy Pelosi? Who is Harry Reid? They had no clue. Then I saw on Yahoo this AM that elected officials could only get 44% right on a civics test, I'm thinkin' it's the similar test that an immigrant would have to take to become a citizen.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081120/od_afp/ushistoryeducationoffbeat

Our country is in serious trouble

Packin' Trash

I think I've had enough of the election, er, ah, installation of the Most Merciful.

They always ask "how're things in the trash business?" & I always say "pickin' up". Kind of an inside joke, eh? This has been quite a week for me. Monday AM, a week, I had a message from JBS Swift & Co a meat packing plant about two hours north of here. You may have heard of it, back when they were pandering to their constituents the Border Patrol raided the joint & got about 200 illegal aliens. Oh, the outcry. Separating families, taking food from babies mouths, beating and torturing their women. All right, all right not serious about that last part...but you'da thunk it the way they and the ACLU were caterwallin'.

Back to the story. I was off to make some repairs. In my job it's as much mental as physical. When they call in a breakdown they usually just say "it don't work" if you call them you're lucky to get any information on the breakdown, they say "it don't work".

I finally get up there, we have three compactors in the plant and two of them are not working. The one in the freezer was easy to fix they had just caused it to skip time, kind of like the rotor on your car, when the gear shears off you go nowhere. I said easy and it was, to fix, it took a while to find out what was wrong. Why they think we need computer control to pack trash, I have no idea. Maybe the environazi's got to them as well. I get to the one at the cattle pens and I find it gutted. I'm really pissed off, they are not supposed to touch our equipment. They broke the shaft between the motor and the pump, the printed circuit board is gone and the motor starter is broken. The first thing I do is inform my boss what's going on and then call my contact in the office of the plant and tell them it will be one to two weeks before the parts will come in. She went crazy so I told her to call the office and talk to the boss. I also told her to tell her people to keep their hands out of the control box. What I didn't tell her is that Swift will be billed for the repairs, parts and travel time. I'll leave that to sales. The machine is still down. Waiting on parts.

An Exchange with a Friend

I haven't posted for a while for a variety of reasons. Most importantly I have a job, a home to take care of & a family. I do have a hard time getting extra time on the computer.

I am pretty disgusted over the election of The One. Not over the man, the people that were just following blindly are idiots. Yesterday at work I got into a discussion with a Mexican immigrant, a former border jumper who became nationalized under the great Clinton giveaway. He grew up in the slums of Mexico City, so I really don't blame him for running to El Norte. An Obama supporter, I ask him why?

Obama's for change

Change is good, we need that in DC. So why did you vote for the same old thing?

Huh, He's going to change how everything is done in politics in this country.

Okay, His VP choice has been a Washington insider, entrenched for 36yrs, all of his picks so far are career politicians whose sole goal in life is to make over this country to suit them, NOT to follow the Constitution, the written laws we live and govern by. He has promised to spend trillions of dollars we don't have.

He's going to get it from the rich people.

The rich don't pay taxes. They pay millions to lawyers and accountants to keep from paying taxes. You heard Warren Buffet say "My secretary pays more income tax than I do. There's something wrong with that."

Well, He's going to make it where everybody is equal.

Everybody is equal now. A man made $1.2mil by putting a rock in a box. Al Gore made millions telling people they are affecting weather patterns. If you have the knowledge and the drive the possibilities are endless in this country. Your Messiah wants to take that opportunity away from you. He wants you to again be that peon you were in the slums of Mexico City.

He does not. (very irate now) He is FOR the middle class and the poor.

Raphael, did you not listen to a word he said?

Associations

Socialism

Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

Marxism

The political and economic philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in which the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society's allegedly inevitable development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and ultimately classless society.

Racism

1.The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2.Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Now, do I believe that Barack Obama is a socialist? I don't know him so all I have to go on is the people who he associates himself with, the people who support him, and the people who back him. In some cases I have his own words that people say "Oh, He didn't mean it that way!" I'm thinkin' if you don't want it taken "that way", you had better not say it. When Obama says "Share the wealth" that, to me is democrat code talk for "share your Income". Unwelcome "sharing of MY income, read theft, taxation without representation, any other reason they give for relieving me of my hard earned salary is without a doubt another step toward socialism.

Is Obama a Marxist? Again I have only his actions, his associations, and his backers to give me insight into his past and into our future should he be elected. We know he is without a doubt the biggest liberal in DC. He has longtime associates that are Marxist and hate the Capitalist society that made America a great nation. Wm Ayers, Geo Soros, even his wife Michele Obama has stated her disdain for the country that gave her such an opportunity. Will that transfer over to the point of Marxism? It may. He is already sowing the seeds of class envy and hatred. The democrat party has already shown signs of becoming the new bourgeois class. Nancy Pelosi of Soviet California has pretty much said of the Republican party "Let them eat cake". Not a direct quote but, close enough.

Is Obama a Racist? Once more I have only his words, actions, and who he hangs with. The Nation of Islam with the racist Farrakan, the Black Panthers, a former terrorist organisation, and Hezbollah have all endorsed him. He has attended a church that preaches racial hatred almost on a daily basis for twenty years and has He not begun to see it their way?

I said long ago that I believed that the next president would be the one who promised to give away the most. It's lookin' like I was right.

Keep your powder dry.

Curious

I guess what I'm most curious about is how The Obama is going to get his "lower taxes plan" implemented if we were unlucky enough to get him as POTUS. Stop and think about it for just a minute. He will have a Dem House and a Dem Senate, I don't know about you but I have never seen a democrat lower taxes. In fact I'm thinkin' they would rather go through a root canal procedure than even talk about it.

This being election time though they know they have to throw the uneducated a bone. Promise them a tax cut until they win then laugh in their faces. "Oh no, (you stupid little man) that is not what I meant. Promise to give them stuff and when it comes time to pay just say "the man before me left such a mess I can't do it".

Does anybody actually believe a Democrat Congress will actually give him permission to cut taxes? We have to remember that when elected to the Senate he was elected on a promise of lower taxes. He lied then. He hasn't even tried to get such a bill introduced. He has railed against any and all tax cuts that have been presented in the very short time he has been in the Senate. Why should we believe that he is not lying now?

I don't.

Another thing I would be curious about would be. Do you think that an Obama presidency would actually pursue the criminals in congress and in the financial centers that have caused the great upheaval of 2008? I hardly think so. Soros would slap him down so fast his head wouldn't stop turning for three days. He'd look like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Oh yeah, he is deeply involved so that is a gaurantee he would do nothing. Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Byron Dorgan and Himself to name a few would get a pass.

The Messiah's message is kind of messy but the great unwashed is falling for it, hook, line and we're sunk.

Waste Hauling

A repost from my homepage

I have mentioned that I am in the Waste hauling and disposal business. Kind of a smelly, dirty, infectious type of business. I have decided that the reason they have available such good insurance is the nature of our work. Not really the reason for this particular rant.

I read an article a few days ago by Patricia Anne Tom, one of my favorite editors in “the business”. It was, in a way disturbing, but we should have seen it coming. She told of the new role that the rail services are going to play in the future transport of waste to landfill. Now I’m thinkin’ that this is a great move for many in the industry on the face of it. The tonnage that is now hauled on the highways is enormous.

There are too many roadblocks to opening a new landfill in today’s world. It takes years to get the permits and the environmental regulations are monumental. Besides the fact that everybody is saying “not in my backyard”, while they generate these same mounds of trash.

When we look at the pros, it looks fantastic. We get hundreds of trucks off of today’s aging interstate system and highways, we have a central location to sort and recycle, and we are able to move mounds of trash away from highly congested metro areas easily.

The cons are substantial as well. First you have a huge start up cost. Then you have the same problems of getting permits and enviro concerns. Then you still have the same guy saying “not in my backyard”!

My biggest concern though is the loss of hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs. It’s almost the same as sending our jobs overseas. As a former truckdriver I know how lucrative and attractive a short haul job can be. Not only getting a good to great wage, but being home every night is priceless. I said the same thing when Detroit automated, they dumped thousands of employees, the quality went to hell, and their product went up thousands of dollars.

The bleeding has to stop somewhere. We are beginning to create our own “nanny state”. If we don’t stop eliminating jobs (for whatever reason) we will have more and more people on welfare.

First Post

This will be my first post, I hope of many. I hope those who read this will excuse any spelling, punctuation errors and formation errors. The reason I named my blog as I did is, well I am in the trash business but I will not limit myself to waste or anything else. It has nothing to do with the Hollywood people who are really idiots that cannot speak without a script and have no original thoughts. I have nothing but admiration for the good and talented people of "the business", the others I do and will consider trash. I do hope to make this interesting as well as informative. I will do my best to never repost without giving credit.