In My Sights.

I've had Corporate America in my sights. In conversations, emails and obliquely here on the blog, I've railed against their inertial policy filled, creativity killing, joy sucking, frustrating ways. I proclaimed I was free of them. I really am, but Corporate America recently got the chance to poke me in the eye.

In the mid 80's, I did a professional internship through Michigan State and worked for an automotive packaging company. It was a great little company, which may not be so little any more. We were working on the first designs of a revolutionary idea; returnable packaging. The automotive industry, starting with Buick City in Flint, were going with a concept where packaging was made to last for several trips. The racks and dunnage would collapse or nest and go back to the vendor who would use it again to ship parts. It has become the norm in many areas of manufacturing. I designed several systems as a part of my internship.

So, Wednesday afternoon, I am looking for an empty trailer. I hauled a damaged trailer from a customer to our yard in Irving, TX. Typically, I either get unloaded while I wait at a consignee or I drop a trailer and pick up an empty. Occasionally, finding an empty is a problem.

At a yard, drivers congregate for different reasons like repairs or inspections etc. Empties are a valuable commodity because there are so many drivers; a supply-and-demand thing. I was having trouble finding one. So I thought I was getting inside info from a guy who checks trailer lights on the yard. I went around the corner to a drop yard that was full of trailers! I found an empty right away. After doing the computer "trailer change," dispatch informs me I can't have that one it is reserved for an automotive load. OK, no problem. I found another. Same deal; can't have it.

Irving, TX is right between Dallas and Ft. Worth. Wednesday, it was in the mid to high 90's. I began to check the other trailers in the yard. This time before I bothered to hook up to them. :o) There must have been 50 trailers in the yard. I didn't look at all of them, but it was close! I was wandering around the yard; doing a cursory inspection. I opened the rear doors on at least 30 trailers. Frustrated; dying of thirst; getting pissed. EVERY SINGLE TRAILER was unavailable. I didn't have to contact dispatch for these. It seems that because the Automotive Industry has slowed a bit, there is a glut of the returnable racks and dunnage. The "Float" between vendor and customer to keep the shipments flowing was now backing up. All of these trailers were at least partially full of Automotive Returnable Dunnage. I'd open one, two thirds full, and move to the next. The next might be only a quarter full of racks that looked exactly like the first racks. It is like those debit card commercials where drinks and sandwiches are flying around, everyone is happy, the music is pumping along. And then someone wants to write a check. . .

So, TOUCHE! Corporate America. You got me.

Of course, I'd never been to the Irving yard before. They all work slightly differently. A yard dog driver came over and asked what I was looking for. "AN EMPTY!" I said. Oh, sorry. He tells me I should talk to Mike over at the office. He doles out the empties. "There's three or four of 'em over there," he says. So, in fifteen minutes, after three hours, I was ready to roll. Of course, my then it was about 6:00 pm. So I slept at the terminal and ran off in the morning to get my load of bottled water in Ft. Worth. Now, I know.

Alex Dorsey is in the South Pacific on a 28' Westsail. He ends his posts with "Peace, Love and Coconuts." I can't wait to say that my self.

So for now,

Peace, Love and Diesel Fumes,

TrT

PS - I've been on Diesel Fumes for two months now. I don't have any trouble with worms or long term relationships. I highly reccommend it. :o) [stolen and paraphrased from a Texas Singer/Songwriter]

Stardate 2007.08.16

Two days ago, I was in Laredo, TX. I've been to Grand Prairie, Irving, Tyler and Dallas [even though my cousin Steve was not!]. This morning, I drove up US75 through Choctaw Country in OK. It was a nice drive. Lake Eufaulla could be the coast of Maine. I am in Roland, OK tonight.

Nature's adaptability is amazing. Puts us humans to shame. There are these little black birds with long beaks in Texas and Oklahoma. They have discovered the smorgasbord on the grilles and radiators of semi trucks. The birds literally hang out at the Fuel Island at truckstops and pick the bugs out of the radiator. I even saw one fellow with his head cocked on a funny angle as if deciding whether it was worth jumping up on that grille or not.

Another fuel island folly, I was fueling and noticed that someone had dropped a ten dollar bill. My first thought was whether I should turn it in or pocket it. By the time I finished fueling, I forgot all about it and drove off.

As I was driving up US75, I was chanting the name of Checotah, OK. It just sounded cool; very spaghetti western indian-ish. When I finally got there, it is the hometown of Carrie Underwood. She wasn't home.

I also heard a song destined for my repetoire:

"I never kissed a girl until I was in college,
she got drunk and cheated on me.

I never kissed a boy until I was in prison,
murder in the first degree."

What a hoot!

Have fun!

It's never too early for Mea Culpa.

I am sitting in a truckstop in Greenville, VA. I'm not in Nelson County but I've never been closer. My uncle, Bob, lived there when he died. I can't say he was my favorite uncle; I have another who has done so much for me. However, from an early age, it was obvious he was a kindred spirit. He was Bob #2 in a family of at least four.

Bob was a free lance photographer. According to family legend, he did many covers for Stereo Review magazine. Bob and his family lived in New Jersey. I can remember a big tree in the backyard and some furniture made out of small barrels. Some time in the 1970's, Bob packed it all in and moved the family to a farmhouse in western Massachusetts where they lived off the land.

They sold chickens and rabbits to pay their property taxes. It was a big old farmhouse with a slate roof. I can still see the big garden, the barn and the yard. There was a big old pool table in a parlour off the living room. I ate cereal or oatmeal with milk still warm from the cow. We didn't have chicken one night; we had rooster! There is Uncle Bob sitting in the living room blowing smoke rings.

I remember playing pool downstairs at my other Uncle Bob's; #4. #2 and I played and talked for a long time. I was living in the basement at the time as I had just moved to the Detroit area. Another time, I was helping him grill snapper behind Grandma and Grandpa's Nokomis house. Uncle Bob showed me how the best part of the fish was the skin that peeled off as it grilled. While everyone else was waiting for grilled fish, we were eating fish skin like potato chips right off the filets.

When I started a business in Florida, I also went through a streak of empty headed conservative politics. I was rabid. We had a salesman working for us who was the only dyed-in-the-wool socialist I've ever met. His name was Ron something. I can't remember his last name for the life of me. Uncle Bob was in Nelson County, living with his ex-wife [something else we have in common] when he sent me a card and took a little jab at my politics. This was at the peak of the Clintons' Whitewater mess. I wrote back the worst, most immature, vitriolic letter. It began in the same fun his card was but quickly devolved into a mess. It must have hit him like a roundhouse slap.

When Uncle Bob got sick, I had just started a job in Sturgis, MI. Mom and Dad, Aunt Chris and Uncle Bob and Grandma and Grandpa went down to see him. As I waited for news on his condition and wrangled for some time off, he was gone. I have very few regrets in my life, but that letter is an open debt. I never had the chance to look him in the eye and talk to him. He probably would have told me to forget the apology. If we had talked, he would have known without me saying. We are still kindred spirits. I almost wish that I could believe in some way that he could be looking down on me; knowing that I am living my own life inspired by his. That is a salve I cannot afford.

If you have something to tell someone; especially someone you don't get to talk to often DO IT NOW! Just pick up the phone and do it. Uncle Bob always called at Christmas, I know that I was passed the phone. Just maybe, he could hear in my voice that I wasn't the guy in that letter. Maybe, but wouldn't it be nice if I had said it out loud.

Ridin' the Governor

For all of you who thought I was talking about Granholm, send yourself to bed with no supper.

I'm a Company Driver. I drive a truck owned by the company. An Owner/Operator is a driver who owns his rig and leases his services to a company. My truck (actually, the truck of my trainer) is therefore set up with the company in mind. The engine has a governor. I can only go about 68 mph. Of course, I've hit 75 mph down a mountain. :o)

It actually works out OK. Most states are 65 mph states, I can ride the governor and not speed enough to get noticed. In the 70 mph states, I'm pretty darn close. The 55 mph states are just a drag. So I spend a lot of time with either the Cruise maxed out or with the pedal jambed to the floor.

Not only are there cultural differences between Company Drivers and Owner/Operators, but not all companies govern at the same speed. There are some Co. Drivers I know I can pass; others I can only catch downhill. :o) Still others that are so close it takes miles to pass them. You little four wheelers have no idea some of the strategy that goes into just picking a lane to get through a big city.

Seeing the world at 68 mph creates its own issues. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to stop and back up to take a picture. And the Arizona desert around US93 at dusk makes me want to paint. I might yet bring some colored pencils along.

Like when I came down out of Chattanooga around a curve and across a lake, the road was cut into the side of a mountain loaded with pine. Or the snowy egret standing on one leg in a river in Texas over a perfect reflection of itself. Or the sunset behind the mountains in the High Desert of New Mexico.

Was it really such a beautiful sunset? Can I really tell at 68 mph. It is the same with women in cars; the wind whipped hair, the delicate wrist and hand on the wheel, the hem of a skirt, even those cute painted toes up on the dash on the passenger side. Was she really that pretty? I like to think so.

I'm living without a governor. Literally without the weight. I am on plan; working toward doing exactly what I've always wanted to do. I think the sunsets and the beauty are out here, but most of us are so wrapped up in a life that we don't notice. Your assignment for today is to catch the sunrise or wait for the sunset or find that perfect photo; even if you're traveling too fast to get out the camera. Notice. Acknowledge. Absorb. Enjoy.

The Night and The Road

Picture finally. El Paso Truck Stop WiFi FTP Blues.

The last bits of evening sun seem to only fall on the lake. Every wake, cats paw, and ripple is dark black against the color. The trees and the hills smudge into the background. Pinks and Purples and Oranges of every variety rip across the clouds. No time for the camera. I'm driving a heavy load of glass. Mirrors or something bound for Arizona.

By the time I cross the next valley the light is gone. There is nothing but flatness in North Texas. I can see towns in the dark from miles away. Streetlights twinkle across the valley; like spilled marbles.

Driving along, I grip the wheel like a skeleton, in some cave, clutching an obelisk. The dry sinew creaks and cracks as Indiana Jones, or some other intrepid explorer, pries it from my boney fingers. In the dark, I see a doe on the shoulder of the highway. My senses crackle to life. Where I come from, deer travel in pairs. Miles later a coyote skitters across right in front of me. I remember my dogs running around the kitchen. I imagine, if I could have heard him, the coyote sounds like that on the tarmac.

There are so many bugs out here on the plains, plastering the windshield. The road becomes something I can sense more than see. I had stopped to wash the windows at a little truck stop. The handles were so short on the squeegee that I opened the hood and climbed up on a tire to reach. Hanging on a frame member and stretching over the churning diesel, I am just spreading bug guts around. I got that much from the windshield wipers earlier.

I slept through Memphis as my trainer was driving. Probably not much to see from the highway. Tomorrow we cross New Mexico. Tucumcari is one of the first towns. Tuc is in a cool song called "Willing." It's a Little Feat song, but I think I've heard a Steve Earle version. Everyone should listen to more Steve Earle.

It is a different life out here. Another version of vagabond, so I'm comfortable. It is tough to do normal life from the road. Trucks can't go on just any road. Shopping becomes difficult. Ralph calls grocery shopping "marketing." I love that. Marketing is tough from the road.

The night is surreal, but its also just a job.

South of Tucson

South of tucson.

Storming over Flagstaff.

Storming over flagstaff.

Cool Quote

I found a cool quote. It flies in the face of my Objectivist tendencies, but I felt it rather than read it [which also flies in the face of said tendencies].

"Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men or governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds or principles, I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth! I say that lying on my pillow and I can feel the horns sprouting from my temples." Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer.

I think that it fits well with the Anarco-Capitalist tendencies I have been feeling lately. It also resonates with the freedom of finally living my own life the way I want to be. Perhaps I have nothing to do with the creeds and principles of the bland "pinks" that trudge along 'in quiet desparation' in modern society.

I started working as a Boat Broker. The people I work with are great and like minded in many ways. One of the guys not only likes to hunt up ethnic foods, he and some friends built a Wharram Catamaran one summer in college. Until I bought In A Mist, I was carrying around James Wharram's Design Book for the last 15 years. Finally walking in my own skin, like minded people recognize me, as me. Think of Emily's First Law of the Spork [see below].

No Matter Where You Go . . .

Sometimes, even for an atheist, the universe seems to be sending a message. Either that or you just need to be good where ever you go. I had the weirdest revelation this evening.

I found a boat on the internet this February, bought it, quit my job and moved to Bay City, Mi where the boat is. Earlier I had commented to people that it was a little eery that I found this boat straight across the river from where I found a boat 10 or 12 years ago. I thought that boat was THEE boat, but it wasn't for a variety of reasons; not the least of which is that I had even less money then than I do now.

I found who I think was the previous owner. I even poked around and found out some details about the guy. I'll not reveal him, until I've discussed that with him. Last summer, while ushering at the Elkhart Jazz Festival, I stood no more than 20 feet from the very person who used to own my boat!!! I believe that he played there the year before as well. When I saw the band's website a couple months ago, it did not occur to me.

I was trying to find an email to send a note to the previous owner. As I cruised around the website again tonight something hit me. I hadn't even finished reading about the places they'd been. I looked at the previous owner's picture again and I could see the whole band in the tent by the river in Elkhart! What a great show too. I'm just dumbstruck.

There is some info that I can share with you. I suspected that the boat's name, In A Mist, was derived from the 1927 Bix Beiderbecke jazz piano composition. The band has actually played a Bix Beiderbecke festival out in Iowa. I love it! I am leaving the name just as it is. I will, however, add "Bay City, Mi" on the stern in celebration of where my adventure started. For all intents and purposes, my home port.

Just remember, be good no matter where you are!