An interesting direction

I have to say you never know when something interesting will drop by. Here today a few owner operators and I were discussing some issues privately online. Out of the blue we have all came to the consensus that we needed a more official organization for the things we are talking about.

Now I have to say this is surprising as this type of thing had been suggested before but was either shot down, or no  one made any real moves with it.

I am a firm believer in that things do happen at certain times for a reason.  The key is to be able to recognize that it is happening and let it flow and see what comes out of it.  It's the same concept that you have certain people that either come into your life, or re-appear at the right time to help you through a situation.  A person just has to be able to recognize the fact and let it happen.

That's how I feel about this current item.  I feel it is at the cusp, the breaking point of suddenly flowing and turning into something that could be really fun, and helpful in our lives.  Here is to hoping I see more signs such as this and recognize them for what they are.

Political Ponderings...the upcoming GOP Convention

I swear, sometimes you have to just laugh your butt off when you read about politics today. I mean, shoot a person has to wonder how some of these people really think, other than the 'do as I say, not as I do'.

What I mean by this is the wonderful example going around with the liberal pundits stating it would be an 'act of God' for Isaac, who has a high potential of turning into a hurricane, to wreck the GOP convention in Tampa.

This is coming from the side that wants you to respect their rights, their sexuality, but how DARE you believe in any type of religion.  They want a society without that kind of icky stuff such as religion, morals etc.

But when it suits them, they will use that kind of language all day long.  Like I said, this is coming from a group who really doesn't have a religious bone to speak of.  Yes I know I am generalizing, as there are always some out there that are religious and spiritual.  But if you look at not only the main media pundits, but also the twitter feeds etc, you have the liberals making those kind of jokes.

I don't have an issue with jokes, what I have an issue with is when you turn the tables on them as a group and do the same thing to them.  When it happens, they scream bloody murder and throw the hissy fit of all hissy fits.  Another wards, they can't take what they give out.

So what do I say to these type of people?  Grow some thick skin, grow a set a balls and roll with the punches.  If you can't stand the heat when its brought down on you, get out of the oven.  Yeah there's quite a few sayings I could throw in here lol.

Now as far as the convention goes, I hear that the locals are preparing to throw one of their grand 'hurricane parties' along with the convention.  To be honest, I kinda wish I could go to this one just to be part of that.  Honestly I think it would be fun to have the convention, and party with a hurricane outside.  Afterwards, they could proclaim a new beginning, a clean slate to start with repairing the country and bring it back from the brink of economic collapse.

So do you know what........LETS PARTY!!!!

Computer crashes and other ponderings

Ah, the one screen no one wants to walk in and see on their computer. Its bad enough to open your laptop and get the screen showing that your 'system' didn't boot down or reboot right, and asks if you want to continue. I'll admit, there are times I'm not sure if I want it to continue normally lol.

How often do you update or clean your system out?  Have you ever?  It 'seems' that the newest operating system seems to be pretty stable.  I can remember with windows 95, heck, windows XP, that you had to go in and defrag that drive at least once a week, and clean up the files.  Every time I check this Windows 7 version, it tells me my defrag rate is too low to run a sweep, so I guess that's a good thing right?  Old habits die hard though, as I wonder why my system still seems to run slow.

In other news, I went and pulled myself off of the dedicated account I was running on.  This month I saw a drastic reduction in the amount of loads that I was pulling on the account compared to the last 3 months averaged out.  It makes a guy wonder when you average 6 loads per month, and in the last 20 days have only pulled 2.  So I put myself back on the OTR fleet where I have a few more options on how I run.  I hope I made the right decision there...whistles

So in closing, when is the last time you have seen 'the blue screen of death'?

Stop and smell the roses

I was speaking to a friend tonight and we were talking about how crazy our schedules seem to have been here lately and it got me thinking. The more I thought about it the more I realized that it seems that here in the last few years, everyone has seemed to have been working more and more.
      The sad thing is that means people are taking less time for themselves to relax. Now this time from what I can tell seems to coincide with when we hit the last major recession here close to 4 years ago. From what I can tell everyone is working more, but not really getting anywhere with it, do you follow me?
      We have all gotten to the point to where we are getting by, but not making any headway with life in general.  To me this seems like a pretty huge problem, like we are getting close to a tipping point.  From what I can see, if things don't start to improve here in the near future, I'm afraid that instead of barely being able to hold the ground we have, we will start to quickly slide back.  If that happens, the recession we had will look like a cakewalk.
      One of the other things that I thought about in this regard are the relationships that we have with other people.  Now relationships do ebb and flow like they normally do, but I do think when we have events like what I am describing above happen, it can affect those too. 
      The relationships that are strong, which have a very good foundation, can handle this kind of shakeup.  Those are the type that shrug this kind of a thing off and move on, while others that are either just starting, or are shaky will fall apart under the additional stress.
     I'm fortunate that I have some relationships with friends and family that are strong, and I consider those my core relationships.  They won't ever really disappear, but will always be there.  I know everyone gets busy from time to time, and things can seem nuts, but a friend with a strong relationship will always be there for you when needed.
     I know personally, I have been way too busy as of late.  I keep telling myself I need to slow down, just a little, so I can enjoy life a little.  It seems little things keep popping up so I promise myself I'll slow down later, but you know what?  Later never comes.  So I know, I need to just dig in, and make myself take that time, for my own good.

                          I promise to slow down a little to smell a few roses along the way.

Our 'Seasoned' Citizens

Last night, I stopped in Iowa at a small truck stop that had a pretty nice diner. Now I'll admit, when I sat down, I didn't realize I was close to 'coffee row' (one of the many names for the area) where the local gentlemen like to sit and just chat. I will say out here this is farm country so the talk did range around those type of things. Since I am a country boy, who grew up on a farm I can relate to just about everything they were talking about.

The talk ranged across the spectrum, minus politics.  From what I can remember growing up, I know most of the farmers considered politics a very personal thing, along with religion.  Those were two subjects you never heard spoken when they got together.

It was very easy to follow along, and at one point, I was asked to join the conversation when it switched over to whether or not one of them needed to get a CDL.  After listening to what he needed, I explained that at this point, it wasn't required since it was farm equipment hauling product from the farm.  We also talked about how testing had changed over the decades.

 One of the gentlemen had driven a bus for the school for close to 50 years!  With all the routes he had, hauling sports teams etc we figured he easily should have had over 1.5 million safe miles driven.  What brought that up was that he had to go and take a driving test for getting airbrakes put on his license.  He thought it was crazy some of the things that the examiner pointed out to him after he passed the test that he needed to look for.  We talked about how times had changed since he had started driving.

The conversation switched over to the current drought, and how people are calling it 'the worst in 50 years'.  Well, at least in Iowa they quickly named off over 4 other periods that had been just as bad if not worse as it is now. 

People tend to be pretty short sighted or forgetful on what has happened in the past.  The thing is though is that we learn from that past, unless we forget about it.  I tell you what though, if you want to know about the past, go find the local coffee group in town.  Be polite, and they will welcome you into the conversation and you will learn a wealth of information, ideas and history.

Try it, you never know what you might learn.

Cohones...Do you have some?

I swear it seems that people are getting worse and worse about wanting to make a decision. Early this morning, I had a 6am appointment to get my truck loaded. There was a screw up yesterday with the shippers system and no one released the loads to be loaded today. They finally started loading me at about 12:45pm cst.

It took almost 6 HOURS for someone at the shippers corporate to grow a set and release the product.  It wasn't the fact that the product wasn't ready, or didn't pass quality control.  They were waiting for the 'big man' upstairs to finally give the order to release it.

In no way am I blaming the warehouse.  Those poor guys wanted to load the trucks and get them on their way.  They are now WAY behind schedule and they have to somehow make it up.

I know this is something that I have noticed here in the last 5 years just in life in general.  There are way too many people running around that don't want to make that 'big decision' or 'be on record'.  Really?  Your getting paid to do it, so just grow a damn pair.   If you make a bad decision, learn from it an move on.  So many people are afraid of making that 'bad decision' that they paint themselves into a corner where they won't make ANY decision.

I'm sorry, to me that is just plain worse.  I'd rather make a bad decision, and be able to learn from it than be frozen in 'fear' and not make any decision at all.

Quit being so damn indecisive America.  Grow a pair, and use them!  Like I said before if its not a good decision, LEARN from it and move on.  The same thing goes for those good or great decisions.  You learn from those too.  But when you don't make any decisions, your just spinning your wheels, hoping someone will do it for you so you don't have to be accountable.

So in closing, take control of your life, grow a pair if you don't have any, and USE them.   Make decisions, move forward....LIVE.

Have we reached the boiling point?

Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone that you reach the point of what our feline friend here is doing? One of the alarming things I have noticed in the last few months or so are the downright dirty nasty attacks that people have been doing to each other in various forums.

Yes, part of this does have to do with the current political climate that we are in, but it's not just limited to that.  I have seen it slowly creeping into everyday life with just common issues.

Is there something in the water that we don't know about?  I'm being serious about this. 

Ok, on the political side, here in the wonderful U.S. we have 2 main political parties.  Yes I know there are others, but those are the two that hold the vast majority of the power right now.  The sad thing is, instead of talking about their ideas, and solutions to the various different problems, BOTH sides have degenerated into flat out mud-slinging to the maximum degree that they can.  I know it has been a problem that has been slowly growing for the last 20-25 years.  I know it goes further than that, but considering I'm 42, I've only been paying attention to politics for that amount of time and can use it as a personal reference.

This last decade seems to have been the worst by far as it steadily gets worse.  I used to enjoy a lively debate with someone who had different ideas just to be able to expand my knowledge base.  I find myself unable to have these kind of debates anymore.  It seems that there are too many people out there that just can't seem to think for themselves, so they use what I call 'one liners' over and over which have no real substance in the discussion for their side of the debate.

Honestly, I don't debate or talk to people that do that since its no fun to 'go into combat' with an unarmed person.  If you don't know any facts about what you believe in, do some damn research!  Form an opinion, then look me up.  Don't base your knowledge off of what some 'talking head' said on t.v. or radio.  There are times I think the general population is getting dumber with all of this technology instead of smarter.  With today's technology, there is NO excuse about not knowing about what you are talking about.  If you don't, your just being lazy, and you know what?  Lazy people do not get anywhere in life.

So all I can say is this.  Get up, research different things, get involved.  Do SOMETHING besides sitting on that couch.  I don't care if we disagree on things but arm yourself with the knowledge.  It does make discussions much more fun and interesting when you take out all of the BS and stupid talking points.  You never know, you might be able to come up with a few SOLUTIONS to the problems.

 If people will do this we won't reach that boiling point I was talking about.  If people don't wake up soon though I have a bad feeling things are going to go downhill in a way no one really wants to see.  The last thing we need is for this great country to be destroyed by its worst enemy......APATHY.

My New Dynasys APU

Well here is my new Dynasys APU on my truck installed by Boomer Diesel in Oklahoma City.  I have to say these guys are very top notch and will do anything to make sure the customer is happy with the product.  The install went very well and was done in under 6 hours which was amazing.

I would recommend these guys for any of this work.  They did great.  I am hoping that with this investment I should have a good ROI (return on investment).  If you need financing Hodyon has an easy finance plan that can work with almost anybody.