Three days

I'm on a roll! Three days blogging in a row. What can I say. My fans are screaming for me. Can you hear them? No? Turn up your scanner. Now can you hear them? I thought that was the problem.

There's a laundromat, or is it laundrymat, a half block away across from the video store. When we're outta soda's we'll walk down and get a Diet Pepsi out of their machine. We've lost money a few times but that's the price of living in America, right?

I walked down there yesterday evening to get me and Isaac a soda cause he was helping me shovel the ice off the sidewalk. Dropped 4 quarters in the machine, hit the appropriate button and a diet Pepsi dropped just like it's supposed to. But then another one dropped. And another. And yes, you guessed it, another one. I thought "Cool, four sodas for the price of one." And then I hit the mother lode. The machine spit my 4 quarters back at me. JACKPOT!!! If only the Vegas slots worked like that for me. On top of that, Sheila looked under her bottle cap (yes, I let her have one) and found the "Buy one, get one free" line. Does that count as 5?

My yard looks really nasty with the snow mostly melted and the mud raising it's ugly head. I wonder if I can replace it with Astroturf.

We got our Christmas tree yesterday. I was planning on waiting til the end of next week when I figured they would be real cheap but we got a good deal. Six foot tree that's real pretty for $25. The guys were closing up shop for the season, lucky we stopped on the way home, and they threw in two wreaths, three bundles of cuttings, and 75 feet of that fresh garland stuff. Know what I'm talking about? Had to cut some branches off the bottom of the tree to get in the stand but it still looks good. I took the branches I cut off and stuck them in the mud right in front of my porch. Viola! Instant bushes. Is that how you spell viola? Sounds like vwahlah. Anyway. There you go.

Picture time.

This is what the front drive axle of my semi normally looks like.


And this is the landing gear under the trailer under normal conditions.


Now here's both those items after driving 11 hours through snow and ice. I'd lay good money I had an extra 2000 lbs of snow and ice hanging off that truck by the end of that day. Maybe that's why all the scales were closed. That and the fact that all the troopers were out helping the stranded motorists.


Maybe I should stop for fuel.


My truck is equipped with "Optimized Idle". What this is supposed to do is start and stop the engine in order to maintain the temperature in the cab while I sleep. It'll run the AC or the heat, whichever I need. Did you notice I said "supposed to"? It doesn't work on my truck. 554,000 miles has a tendency to cause wear and tear on a system. So when it's hot outside I open the vents on the side and the top windows of the sleeper and relax. Actually, that works pretty well unless we're talking 90's. When it's cold, I use what's called a Webasto heater. It's like those propane torpedo heaters you see in construction sights. It runs off the diesel fuel and heats the cab that way. If the temps drop below 20 I just run the motor. Below 20 for too long and the motor will be hard to start in the morning unless I plug it in, and unless I'm at my own shop, chances are I'm not gonna have a place to plug in.

I noticed on my Stat Counter that I had 63 page loads on Sunday. Man, there must have been a large number of extremely bored people on Sunday.

Can you tell it's been quiet in my house? I've gotten a lot done this morning. And Preston's up. He wants hot chocolate, puppy chow (the candy kind). Wants me to teach him how to make coffee. Here comes Isaac. The quiet is officially over.

See ya.